How fitting that longtime AJC Falcons beat writer D. Orlando Ledbetter broke the news that coach Dan Quinn and GM Thomas Dimitroff were fired.
Ledbetter has been through all of the Falcons' ups and downs for more than a decade. He covered the crash of Michael Vick, and wrote about the heralded arrival of Quinn and Dimitroff.
When the Falcons flew a 28-3 lead to the Patriots in the 2017 Super Bowl, Ledbetter was there to dissect the disaster. Late Sunday, he closed the book on Quinn and Dimitroff's once-promising Falcons era.
Although I'm a Saints fan, I sympathize with Falcons followers. With his sad bloodhound face, Blank has been pushing the rock up the mountain and watching it fall back to the bottom for years.
Sunday afternoon after Matt Ryan's game-killling interception gave the Falcons an 0-5 start to the season, Blank on the sidelines in his dark three-piece suit looked like an undertaker.
Ledbetter is among a stalwart crew of AJC sportswriters who've been chronicling the Atlanta sports scene for decades. After all of the newspaper's changes, Ledbetter keeps marching on along with Tim Tucker, Steve Hummer and Mark Bradley.
Columnists Hummer and Bradley have seen the comings and goings of generations of players. They saw Braves Chipper Jones and Brian McCann progress from fresh-faced kids to seasoned veterans.
While they watched from the press box, Glavine, Smoltz and Maddux pitched themselves into the Hall of Fame. Hummer and Bradley have told AJC readers about Matt Ryan's hits and misses, and Jeff Francoeur's shooting-star rise and fall from his high school days in Gwinnett County to the major leagues. The columnists' careers have spanned many afternoons of UGA and Georgia Tech football.
Reading Tucker's recent pieces on the Braves playing the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, I marveled to recall that Tucker as a brilliant young beat writer captured the joy and sorrow of the Braves' 1982 season, when they won the Western Division title and lost the National League Championship Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
The man who followed the exploits of Dale Murphy and Bob Horner now writes about Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman and Marcell Ozuna.
And Ledbetter will be there to report on Blank bringing in yet another miracle worker who promises to lead the Falcons to a long-sought Super Bowl victory.
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